Mokeskin and Milk Chocolate
by Ashton Redde
Summary: With the help of sweets and a certain birthday gift, the hunt for Voldemort's horcruxes becomes a little easier.


_**During the hunt for the horcruxes, why didn't Harry, Ron, and Hermione just**_ **steal** _ **food?**_

If Harry hadn't spent the first ten years of his life skipping meals and being denied food for days on end, he might have been complaining nearly as much as Ron.

"Merlin, I'm starving." Ron put his head in his one good hand and ran it through his dirty red hair. "When's the last time we ate something that wasn't mushrooms?"

Harry sighed and resisted the urge to bite back at Ron. His hand went up to the heavy gold chain around his neck. The chain pulled at his skin and he winced at the sting from his irritated skin. It had to have been a few hours already, hadn't it? After a brief battle of the wills, Harry slipped the cursed locket off his neck.

"You want me to wear it?" Ron offered, looking tiredly towards his friend.

Harry shook his head and rubbed at his raw neck. "No, it's Hermione's turn. I hate keeping watch over this stupid-"

His fingers brushed over the drawstring of the mokeskin pouch, a gift from Hagrid at his last birthday. A spark of realization flashed through his mind.

"Of course!" He burst out, jumping to his feet. "I'm such an idiot!"

"What?" The exhaustion left Ron's eyes. "What is it?"

"Harry?" Hermione's worried voice called from the dining room of the tent. She entered the small bedroom, wand drawn and hair frizzier than usual. "What's wrong?"

"I've been an idiot," Harry pulled the mokeskin off his neck and opened the pouch. "Why on earth are we keeping guard of the locket when we can just do this?"

"Wait, Harry-" Hermione started, but Harry quickly slipped the locket into the bag beside the Marauder's Map and closed the pouch again. He placed it around his neck once more and turned to Hermione with a smile.

"See? Now no one has to wear it and even if someone else got their hands on the pouch, I'd be the only one able to open it."

Hermione stared flabbergasted at the mokeskin. Ron gaped and turned red with frustration.

"You mean you've had that thing the whole time and not one of us thought to-"

He suddenly stopped dead and turned to Hermione. "We could have even put it in your bag! Merlin's pants."

Hermione moaned and dropped her wand onto one of the bunkbeds, sitting heavily beside it.

"Oh, I've been foolish. I'm so sorry, I didn't even think. And to think we've all been on edge because of this awful thing-"

"-It's not your fault." Harry cut her off as he sat again. A strange sense of pride and calm had settled over him, mostly due to the removal of the horcrux. It was the first time in weeks that anything even remotely good had happened to the three of them.

Ron's stomach rumbled, breaking the silence. He groaned and clutched his arm.

"Oh, I need to reapply your bandage Ron." Hermione stood and knelt by him, pulling her beaded bag out of her pocket to summon a bottle of potion.

"Merlin, I forgot I had this in here." She pulled off a sticky purple wrapper that had become stuck to the bottle.

Harry caught a glimpse of the wrapper and almost laughed. He hadn't seen one of those since two summers ago, when Dudley had brought home a fistful of candy stolen off of a local child.

"Milk Bars? Really?"

Hermione sighed and shook her head as she removed Ron's bandages.

"Just because my parents are dentists, doesn't mean I don't like sweets."

"Wait," Ron picked the wrapper off the ground and curiously examined the shiny plastic. "You had chocolate, but you didn't pack food?"

"I was a little preoccupied with putting a proper medical kit together." Hermione replied waspishly. Ron hissed as the pale pink potion dripped onto his arm.

"Is this some kind of muggle sweet?" Ron asked, easily peeling apart the flimsy paper. "Wait, there's still some left."

He pulled a tiny piece of chocolate out of the wrapper. Harry and Hermione both made a face.

"Ron, I doubt that's still good. I bought it last-"

It was too late. Ron popped the candy into his mouth and his eyes widened in surprise.

"This is really good." He licked the remaining chocolate off his fingers. "There isn't anymore, is there?"

Hermione shook her head as she wrapped the new bandages over his damaged arm. Harry frowned in thought.

"You got that at a supermarket, right?"

She gave Harry a strange look as she finished tying off Ron's new bandage. "The drug store. Why?"

Harry shook his head and stood up from the bunk bed. "Alright, that's it. Where's the cloak?"

"Harry?" Hermione stood up.

"You can't go anywhere, Harry." Ron reminded him, gingerly pulling himself up. His stomach growled again; his face went red with embarrassment.

Harry shook his head and pointed at Ron. "No, we do. How much longer do you think we can last without food? Another week? This is ridiculous. I'm taking the cloak and finding the nearest muggle store."

"We don't have money, Harry. I didn't pack enough because I didn't imagine that we would be camping."

"So we'll just take it." Harry yanked the blanket off his bunk and grabbed the shimmery fabric hidden between the sheets. "I'm already Undesirable Number One, might as well make that title mean something."

Hermione gaped at him. "Harry, that's stealing. We can't! We'd be no better than the people we're fighting and breaking the International Statute of Secrecy-"

"Hermione!" Ron burst out. "We are on the run! You really think that matters? And besides, we're already camping out in someone else's field, isn't that already breaking the law a little?"

She bit down hard on her lip and looked down at the ground. Harry took the moment to give Ron a grateful look. They both appreciated Hermione's intelligence, but her morals could be as rigid as diamonds. After a few seconds thought, she glanced up at Harry.

"Fine," She breathed out. "But I'm the only one who can apparate, so I have to come with you!"

Harry and Ron both looked surprised, but swiftly agreed with her. After leaving Ron to hold down the fort (with Ron constantly reassuring Hermione that he would be fine and Hermione insisting on a password in case an impostor of her or Harry returned), Harry and Hermione disappeared from the tent.

Harry did not think he would ever become comfortable with apparition. His organs felt like they been sucked through a silly straw. Hermione seemed relatively unaffected and waited patiently for Harry to compose himself. Gradually, Harry stood straight. They were standing on the sidewalk beside a very new looking Tesco. Shoppers bustled past them, carts rattling and children shrieking. He glanced towards her, questioning.

"We're about ten miles from my house." She whispered as they weaved through the crowds. "I think they built it in the summer before sixth year."

Harry nodded. "How much do you think we can hide in your bag?"

"Don't worry about that."

At the flower stand, an old woman in pink jumped and glanced about sharply.

"Geoffrey?" She clung to her handbag and narrowed her eyes. "Where are you? I didn't bring you along so you could play around!"

Harry and Hermione swiftly walked away, footsteps only barely obscured from the sounds of people talking and tinny pop music from the radio. They didn't stop until they found themselves in an empty aisle.

"Canned food." Harry suggested. "That'll keep awhile, right?"

Hermione nervously glanced about and huddled closer to Harry. "Yes, well, we'd need a pot or something for that, wouldn't we?"

He glanced around them to make sure there was no one in sight and soundlessly snatched a cooking pot off the shelf. Hermione's eyes widened at the price

"Goodness, that's expensive." A brief expression of guilt passed over her face before she shrunk the pot and slipped it into her bag.

"Look at it this way Hermione," Harry grabbed a portable cooking grill off the shelf. "Can you really put a price on saving the world?"

Hermione paused before performing the shrinking charm again.

"No," She sighed. "I suppose you're right."

Harry smiled. "Maybe we can find some more of those Milk Bars?"

She rolled her eyes and gently nudged his shoulder. "Don't press your luck."

Ultimately, the two managed to come back to the tent with a lot more than just Milk Bars and soup pans. When Hermione dumped out their haul two hours later, Ron's eyes widened in shock.

"You got all this in the muggle world?" He picked up a large bag of jumbo marshmallows. "What is this even for?"

"S'mores." Harry answered. "It occurred to me that since you grew up in the magical world, you never knew the magic of chocolate, graham crackers and marshmallow."

Ron glanced at Hermione. The witch was digging with gusto into a large container of birthday cake ice cream, stolen ice cream scoop in hand. He chuckled at the sight.

"Hungry enough to break the law, huh?"

"Less talking, more eating Ronald." She grumbled, shovelling ice cream into her mouth. "Or else I won't share the Milk Tray with you."

Wondering what she meant, Ron dug through the groceries, pushing aside winter sweaters, soup cans, boxes of 'girl stuff' (he was too much a teenage boy to voice the word 'tampon') and a large bag of potatoes before his hands landed on a purple box with a familiar logo.

"Yes!" He cheered and ripped open the box.

"No, wait!" Hermione's ice cream landed heavily on the table. "Don't eat everything!"

Ron moaned happily as he dug into the chocolates.

"I'm starving and wounded. I'll do what I like."

Harry laughed for the first time in weeks and fished an apple out of the mountain of provisions. For once he was looking forward to breakfast in the morning, eager to try out the camping supplies for cooking so he could fry up something that wasn't pilfered fish or foraged mushrooms. The apple crunched soundly in his mouth as he watched his two friend argue over chocolate. Voldemort may have been ruling the magical world, but at least he and his friends weren't starving.

X-X-X-X

 **i literally wrote this in one afternoon. Ever since I first read Deathly Hallows, it always bugged me that the trio would never just steal food. Also, why did they _have_ to wear the locket? They already know cursed necklaces are a bad idea, just look at Katie Bell.**


End file.
